Cooper Building Dangles Discounts Lure
Dedicated shoppers get their kicks from finding something decent at discount. Paying full price is a little like celebrating a happy event with flat champagne. It’s still a fun occasion, but it lacks a certain effervescence.
The Cooper Building in Santa Ana has some good buys and interesting merchandise. But you have to rake through a little rubble to get to the big rewards. Of the two dozen discount shops (all but one under one roof) on Grand Avenue, more than half offer national brands at a savings. The rest of the stores feature mostly little-known brands of average quality at modest prices, with a few well-known labels thrown in. And like many shopping centers, this one is geared a bit more toward teen-age girls than to women, men or children.
The 1-year-old operation is the Orange County cousin of the Cooper Building in Los Angeles’ garment district. The Los Angeles Cooper Building at 860 S. Los Angeles St. is a 12-story market located in a former manufacturer’s loft. It is a 10-year-old haven for bargain hunters and houses about 70 shops (they are called showrooms) owned by various discounters.
Last year Cooper Building owner Stan Hirsh opened the Orange County offshoot (the only other Cooper Building so far, although Hirsh plans others in the San Fernando Valley and the Palos Verdes peninsula) because so many of the Los Angeles shoppers were from Orange County.
“We wanted to bring the garment district to Orange County,” Hirsh said. “From our mailing list we saw how many of our customers were from Orange County, and we wanted to offer them a more convenient way to shop.”
Unlike the vertical market in Los Angeles, Cooper Building Orange County is a collection of four buildings surrounding a parking lot. Building A, where all but one of the stores are located, is more than 90% leased, according to Pat Inbody, public relations director. Plans call for Building B to house merchants similar to those in Building A (which consist primarily of discount clothing outlets), Building C to be used as a convention center and place for liquidation sales, and Building D to hold an open-air market for food and merchandise.
Hirsh has a five-year, $5.2-million lease on the Grand Avenue site, where he hopes to attract additional discounters, including those dealing in home furnishings, linens and other goods. He also wants to add a full-service restaurant to attract workers from nearby office buildings.
The market now has a small snack bar that sells croissants, muffins, soft drinks, hot dogs, a few salads and casseroles. The building has restrooms, printed directories and a couple of chairs in the snack bar. Those chairs are about the extent of the interior decorating at the Cooper Building, which looks more like the factory it used to be than the retail center it now is.
But shoppers don’t come to Cooper for fountains, fast food or fancy decor. They come for bargains. The best buys during a recent visit were found at Collectibles, a new outlet that opened April 1. In the Cooper Building directory, Collectibles advertises its merchandise as “designer labels sold below wholesale.” Featuring Anne Klein II, Donna Karan, Nancy Heller, Nolan Miller and Bis-Gene Ewing, Collectibles has a good selection of these labels at attractive prices. The directory lists prices at between 25% and 70% off retail. If the price tags are to be believed, some of the clothes are sold at even better prices. A light wool Anne Klein II jacket cost $129.99, which according to the tag was selling at $299.99 elsewhere. A Bis shirt cost $29, contrasted with $89 elsewhere (according to the tag), and a Donna Karan beige coat-dress cost $149.99, contrasted with $624.99 elsewhere.
Good buys also were found at Joanna Footwear, which features Nickels, Keds, Biarritz and Anne Klein, among other labels. Biarritz espadrilles were priced at $12, Nickels leather sandals at $56 and Keds sneakers at $17.
Other good spots are Altogether, which has Liz Claiborne separates; Fashion King for men’s suits; Best Kids for pretty Sarah Kent dresses and Le Top T-shirt sets; Kids’ World for Cherokee jean dresses; and Uomo for unisex clothing from the United States and Brazil.
Public relations director Inbody says most of the merchandise at the Cooper Building is plucked from manufacturers’ current collections and consists of some samples and other items that were bought in bulk by the retailers.
“The stores have designer merchandise in current spring lines, comparable with what’s in the department stores,” Inbody said. “The clothes are what Nordstrom, I. Magnin, Bullock’s and Robinson’s carry.”
When it was pointed out that not all of the stores carry well-known or designer labels, Inbody said: “This is what we’re heading toward. These are the kind of retailers we are trying to attract.”
Each store at the Cooper Building is an independent operator, and each has different policies and pricing strategies. Some of the stores feature both well-known labels and “unknowns,” some feature merchandise at 20% off retail, others at 70% off. And most of the stores offer merchandise credit rather than cash refunds.
THE COOPER BUILDING AT A GLANCE
ADDRESS: 1928 S. Grand Ave., Santa Ana. North side of Grand Avenue between Warner and Edinger avenues. (714) 641-9354.
NUMBER OF STORES: 24 in Buildings A and B.
MOST UNUSUAL SHOP: Uomo Mart has an interesting mix of Brazilian and American unisex clothes. Pointe Basic Bermuda shorts and T-shirts and Point Zero shirts are a good buy.
BEST PLACE TO BROWSE: Oro Hair Centre. Oro has hundreds of cosmetic products: Avant-garde brushes, purple blush-on, bizarre shades of lipstick line the shelves, along with more conventional merchandise. The store, which features Revlon, Oro, Lancome, Joe Blasco, Sebastian, Nexxus, Rusk and Paul Mitchell, also has a full-service hair salon in the back. Pat Inbody, the Cooper Building public relations director, says Oro “has the lowest prices in Southern California” for cosmetics.
QUICK BITES: The blueberry muffins ($1) aren’t bad, but the selection of nibbles is a little thin; soda, hot dogs, croissants, a few salads and casseroles and a small selection of sandwiches are offered.
